


All the Branches Burst Abloom

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Historical Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 09:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15726645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Bellamy could tell Lady Clarke that he loves her and wants to marry her. That would be a simple solution to basically every problem in his life. But the most pressing problem is her upcoming arranged marriage, and he doesn't want her to have to turn him down because she doesn't feel the same way he does, and then she has to get married anyway.Much easier to just point out she can't go through with the arranged marriage if she's already married to someone else, and let her suggest it. That'll definitely work out for him.





	All the Branches Burst Abloom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apanoplyofsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apanoplyofsong/gifts).



> Happy birthday to Kristen!

"This can't actually work," Bellamy mutters. "Right?" 

Clarke rolls her eyes. "It's already working. How is it going to go wrong at this point?"

"You want a list?"

"I actually do. If you have one ready."

He doesn't exactly have the list _ready_ , but it's not that hard to assemble. He was assuming she'd ask for it sooner, start poking holes in the plan as soon as he proposed it, but instead she called for the carriage so they could leave almost as soon as he'd finished speaking.

He should have known, honestly.

"Your parents will contest the marriage," he says.

"We're getting married. Legally. By a priest and everything. What can they possibly contest?"

"The wedding night."

She thinks that over, but only for a second. "I'm not a virgin. If they have me examined--which I doubt they will--that's what they'll find, and then they have to either accept that you did it or argue that I was lying with men before we were married."

"Then they'll just have me killed."

"They won't have you killed."

"I'd feel better if you had a follow-up to that. I stole you and forced you to marry me, they're going to want to have me killed."

He deserves the look she gives him. "You didn't steal me, and they won't think that. They'll know exactly what happened."

While that's probably true, it's not as comforting as Clarke thinks it is. She's been trying to get out of marrying Lord Paxton for months, for which Bellamy can't blame her; the choice might be politically beneficial, but Clarke's never been interested in a political match. And Lord Paxton was at the bottom of her list of those.

"It was my idea," he says, his last resort.

"Not _really_. You just said that if I married someone else, I couldn't marry Paxton. You didn't volunteer."

It's true, in the strictest sense of the word, but he'd also known, when he said the words, that if Clarke liked the idea, she'd ask him to marry her, and he knew he'd say yes.

It's either the best idea he's ever had or the worst, depending on how it turns out.

"No, but--"

"Are you two sure about this?"

Clarke turns her attention from Bellamy to Monty, flashing him a smile. "Is that how you start all your marriages?"

"No, but I probably should. Your parents are going to be--upset."

"I've been telling her," says Bellamy.

"Well, it's not too late to change your minds. But I know you guys too well, there's no way you're changing your minds, so--let's get you married."

He's not wrong; despite Bellamy's token protests, he wouldn't be here, at a priest with Clarke, if he was going to change his mind. And even if it hadn't been his idea, he would be here. If he can help Clarke, he always will.

"Let's," he agrees, and they do it quickly. From what he can tell, Monty became a priest primarily to avoid anyone trying to make him a soldier, and he has no particular attachment to either religion or ritual. Which makes him Bellamy's favorite priest; he wouldn't go to anyone else.

"Do you two need to kiss?" he asks, once he's done. "It's traditional."

"We probably should," says Clarke, which saves Bellamy from having to think about the question. "I don't want anyone saying it's not official."

"Yeah, might as well do it right," Monty agrees. "Bellamy, you may kiss your bride."

Bellamy ducks his head, presses his mouth to Clarke's, quick and dry. She's smiling, which is nice, and she squeezes his hand like she thinks he needs encouragement. 

"All right," says Monty. "Murphy, I present to you for the first time as a married couple, Bellamy and Clarke."

"Woo," says Murphy, flat, not looking up from the book he's reading. "Can we go yet?"

"You have to sign the marriage certificate as the witness," says Monty. "Ten more minutes and you can be done."

Bellamy signs his own name as the groom, and Clarke signs as the bride. Murphy does put his name as the witness, a fairly safe position for him. He's Clarke's driver and one of the family attendants, which in theory means he's not allowed to disobey her orders. In practice, Murphy doesn't really give a shit and Clarke would never actually dismiss him for insolence, but her parents don't have to know that. 

Whatever hell is coming at them for this, it's just going to come at him and Clarke. That's a comfort.

"Inn for the night," Clarke says, once it's done and they're back in the carriage.

"Inn?" asks Murphy.

"If we go home together, someone might tell my parents, and they'll stop us before we can consummate the marriage and cover it up. We need to be alone tonight."

"To not have sex. Seems like a waste."

"If we change our minds, we'll let you know," says Clarke. "Just take us somewhere clean and close to the house."

He waits until they're on the way to say, "You know I have a a house of my own. We could go there."

"I know. But if we go to an inn, then people will see us. Rumors start. The more people know about us, the harder it would be for my parents to try to cover it up."

"So, we're making a spectacle of ourselves."

"There's no point doing this if it doesn't work," she says, not unreasonably. "We went to all the trouble of getting married, we should at least make sure it sticks."

"Yeah," he says, but that's another question that's lingering in his mind, one he doesn't really want to raise in front of Murphy. 

So he waits as Clarke checks them into the inn, as the people in the attached tavern get a sight of them, the daughter of the lord and the blacksmith. It's not as if their friendship is a secret--everyone knows about that--and there have been plenty of rumors that said friendship goes beyond the proper boundaries, at least on his side, but there are rumors and there's the two of them at an inn together, purchasing a single room for the night.

"I'm going to go get drunk and tell everyone you got hitched," Murphy adds, which means the whole town will know by morning. "Have fun with the wedding night."

"Have fun with the drinking," says Clarke, and takes Bellamy's hand to lead him upstairs.

The room is mid-sized, equipped with a single bed and a dresser, a washbasin, a chair and a window. Bellamy sits in the chair to take off his shoes, and Clarke sits on the bed.

"I guess we have a lot to talk about," she says.

They did talk some beforehand, but more about how to get her out of it than his plan specifically. Clarke was getting desperate; the wedding to Lord Paxton was only a month away, and she was supposed to be leaving for his estate to prepare in a few days. Bellamy had been thinking of just proposing, of asking Clarke to marry him before she could marry Paxton, but it had felt too dangerous. The last thing he wanted to do was to put her in a position of having to refuse his proposal because she realized it was genuine. She would have been in worse shape than before, still in need of a way to avoid Paxton _and_ unable to rely on her best friend like she had before.

So he'd let her propose the marriage, and he'd agreed, and now here he is, in an inn with the woman he loves on his wedding night, talking strategy.

"You don't think they'll disown you, do you?"

She flops onto her back on the bed. "No, I don't. They'll be most concerned with not offending Lord Paxton. Which means we'll need to be married for a while."

"I don't see how those are connected."

"My parents are going to know why you married me," she says, and he hopes not. "They'll know it was to get me out of marrying Lord Paxton. But we can't tell him that. We have to tell him that we're in love, that we got married because we couldn't bear being apart."

"That's what they'll say?"

"What else could they say? That's what I'm going to tell them. They might not believe it--"

"They're definitely not going to believe it."

"I know I'm asking a lot of you," she says, finally. "It's--"

"Clarke," he says, leaving the chair to sit next to her on the bed. "You're not asking for anything I didn't offer. If I have to stay married to you for the rest of my life, I don't mind."

"You don't have to do that. A few years should be enough. I'll stop seeming like a good political tool."

Now would be a good time to tell her something romantic, to tell her that he _wants_ to spend the rest of his life with her, that he can't imagine ever wanting to marry anyone else. That he'd marry her any day, every day.

Instead, he says, "Whatever you need, Clarke," and she smiles and asks which side of the bed he wants.

*

Bellamy does not wake up with his arms full of Lady Clarke Griffin, but he at least has her hair in his mouth, which is nicer than he would have expected. He spits it out and she groans, rolls over.

"We really did that, huh?"

"You weren't even drunk," he teases. "Don't tell me you forgot."

"I didn't forget, just--today's going to be a lot."

"We can say it was--something else," he says, struggling for other excuses. "A stupid mistake, not a marriage, and it won't get back to Lord Paxton. Your parents would be happy to go along with it."

"Do you want to?"

There's a tension in her voice, and it's early and warm and suddenly so easy for him to roll over and put his arms around her. He's hugged Clarke before, when she was upset, needed comfort, but it's different in a bed, in the early morning.

"It was my idea, remember? I'm in. I love arguing with your parents, I do it all the time."

She laughs. "You do. And I do too. Just--it's going to be a rough day."

"Yeah," he agrees, because there's no denying it. "But then it'll be over, and you won't have to leave. So let's get it done."

The inn offers breakfast, but they don't partake. Murphy's already waiting in the carriage, so they load into the back for him to take them back to the manor house.

While Bellamy doesn't actually live on the lord's estate anymore, it is where he grew up, the son of a maid who got himself apprenticed to the town blacksmith when he was thirteen. The master of the house had still been Clarke's father, before he died, and he'd been delighted to offer Bellamy a place on the estate once he was trained.

Back then, Clarke had always been just there. She's three years younger than he is, had always played more with his sister than she did with him. But when he came back to the estate at eighteen, she was suddenly interesting, smart and curious, and they'd become friends, and then he loved her, inevitably.

And then her parents started talking about her marriage, and here they are, six years later, married to each other because he didn't know how to lose her any more than he knew how to keep her.

Like she said, it's going to be a weird day.

His sister is the one who's waiting for them at the gate, and Murphy stops to let her into the carriage.

"Did you two get _married_?" she asks. "And not even invite me?"

"We didn't invite anyone but Murphy," says Clarke. "It was pretty fast."

"Bell confessed his love and begged you not to go?"

He's not actually sure his sister knows how he feels about Clarke; she's probably just throwing taunts at him to see if they stick, the way she usually does. And it's probably good, that it's her first guess. That is the story they're selling.

"I thought she'd get out of it," he says, with a shrug. "When she didn't--yeah. I couldn't let her go."

Clarke leans her head against his shoulder. "It took him long enough."

From the way Octavia is watching him, he can't help thinking she's surer about his feelings for Clarke than he thought, and a lot surer than he'd like. It should be good news, that people believe the story, but Octavia doesn't, really.

She probably knows the whole truth, and he really wishes she didn't.

"How are my parents?" Clarke adds. "Have you talked to them?"

Octavia isn't exactly a ward of the estate, but when their mother died, the family found a place for her, made sure she was kept fed and clothed even as she failed to be any good at being a maid or a cook or any of the other domestic tasks they gave her. She's settled on working with the hostler now, and that's a good fit, which is a relief. He'd been worried she'd never find anything to suit her.

He's not really surprised when she snorts. "Are you kidding? I didn't want to deal with that. You can talk to them yourself."

"Fair enough," he says. "Are you going to come listen?'

"Not if you paid me. I just wanted to find out what happened."

"Basically exactly what you thought."

"Great. If you get exiled, I'm not going with you."

"I didn't think you would."

Abby and Marcus aren't waiting at the door, which feels like a good thing until he realizes they probably want privacy for this conversation, and that might not be the best thing. He'd get yelled at less with witnesses.

"Good luck with that," says Octavia, jumping out of the carriage before he and Clarke do, leaving them to walk up the stairs and into the house alone. 

The butler greets them with, "The lady and her husband are waiting for you in the dining room."

"At least we'll get breakfast," says Clarke, taking his hand, and he snorts.

"I bet they don't offer us anything and just glare at us as their food gets cold."

"They must have been expecting something."

"Something," he agrees. "Probably not this."

"They shouldn't blame us for their lack of imagination."

"They shouldn't, but they will."

Clarke stops him with a hand on his arm before they get to the doors. "Thank you," she says, her voice earnest. "I don't think I said that. You're doing me an incredible favor."

"I'm not," he says. "I couldn't do anything else. There's no way I was going to let you get shipped off across the kingdom to marry a man you hated. I would have missed you."

"Still. Thank you."

"Thank you for choosing me," he says, and holds the door open for her.

Bellamy has lived in on Griffin lands for his whole life. When he was young, he remembers Lord Jacob being kind to him, and Lady Abigail being more distant, but he never felt as if it was personal. His mother was a good worker, and he was . When Lord Jacob died, there was an appropriate period of mourning, and a year after that, Lady Abigail remarried, a younger son with no claim to his own land. He likes Marcus well enough, but by the time he came around, Bellamy's feelings for the entire Griffin family were complicated by his feelings for Clarke.

She's his favorite, and that means he can't care about anyone else like he cares about her. He's allied with Clarke in a way that puts him at odds with the rest of her family because he knows if he ever had to, he'd pick her every time.

Marcus stands to greet the two of them while Abby sits, jaw tight. "Good morning."

"Good morning," says Clarke. "I assume you heard the news."

"That you eloped and had Murphy brag about it to every drunk in the kingdom?" Abby snaps.

Clarke thrives in situations like this; she stays calm. "Not _every_ drunk. Just the ones at the tavern attached to the inn."

"Clarke--" She rubs her temples. "I knew you didn't want to marry Lord Paxton, but--"

"But you thought I would anyway." She bites her lip, and it looks really convincing. Like she really is torn up. "I understand you wanted me to marry for political gain. I know you did, when you married my father. But you weren't in love."

For all he knows she's selling a story, his heart still flips.

"And that's what you want me to tell Lord Paxton?"

"I wanted you to tell him I wasn't going to marry him in the first place. But you didn't, and I realized--" 

"I couldn't lose her," Bellamy puts in, when Clarke seems to be actually at a loss for words. "I thought she'd get out of it, but she didn't, and I couldn't just let it go without saying anything. Without trying."

"So, you're in love, and this is a beautiful story," says Abby, flat.

It hurts more than he expected, that she doesn't believe them. It may not be entirely true, but his side is. 

"I'm not saying you have to be happy for us," Clarke says. "But I'm with him. You can either accept it or exile us."

"No one said anything about exile," Marcus protests. "We were--surprised. You hadn't mentioned any other specific suitors."

"I didn't have any. I wasn't going to volunteer him to marry me."

Abby closes her eyes, as if she's breathing through this. "You should have consulted us."

"I was more interested in making sure I married him and it stuck."

"Hence spreading your own rumors at the tavern last night?" Marcus puts in. 

"If you want something done right--" Clarke leans forward, expression going earnest. "I know how bad this is for you, and I know I made it worse by doing it like this. But I wasn't willing to let this be something you tried to sweep under the rug. I'm married to Bellamy, and that isn't changing. If you want me to tell Lord Paxton why I can't marry him, I'll be happy to. But I'm not. I don't care if you exile us."

"Does he?" Abby asks. 

"No," says Bellamy, and that's true too. He's getting to be remarkably honest in this conversation. "I'm a smith, I can make my living anywhere."

"The advantage of learning a trade." Clarke smiles at her mother. "We don't need this marriage with McCreary. It would have been beneficial, politically speaking, but we don't _need_ that. We're in good standing."

"We were, until you eloped with a blacksmith."

"I'm sorry, is that going to ruin the family? I don't think it is."

Abby lets out a sharp breath. "It won't do us any good."

"It does me good," says Clarke. "I'll be happier."

Bellamy's expecting more protestations, but that knocks the fight out of Abby. "At least there's that. It's early, you must not have eaten. Sit down, we'll talk about what's next."

It dawns on Bellamy slowly, as they eat and Clarke and Abby talk about logistics--where he and Clarke will live, what his title will be, if they need to have another ceremony--that he really _didn't_ think this would work. It was a last-ditch effort when he had nothing to lose, and even when he married her, he thought her parents would get her out of it somehow.

Instead, he's going to be the lord of the manor. Abby is talking about _children_.

He chokes on his tea when he hears that, and Clarke rubs his back without taking her attention off her mother. "Of course we know we'll be expected to have children. I know the line is weak. But anything that would kill the rest of the line would probably kill a child too, so I think we have a few years."

"You certainly seemed eager to get started, based on what I heard about your activities last night," says Abby, dry.

Bellamy doesn't choke again, but there's nothing in the corld that would make him respond to that remark.

Clarke doesn't make him, but given her response is, "Children aren't really the draw of the wedding night," he's not sure he's much better off.

"Of course not." She turns her attention to Bellamy for the first time, and he'd prefer she hadn't. "Will you be moving your things today?"

"I haven't packed," he says, glancing at Clarke like she has the answer. "I'll need to decide what to do with the house and the things I don't need. Octavia might want it, or the Millers' son."

Abby nods. "And I assume you plan to continue working."

"He won't have a lot of responsibilities until we're in control of the estate," Clarke points out. "I don't see why he wouldn't work."

"And we do need a blacksmith," says Marcus.

"We do." She exhales, visibly moving on. "As you said, Bellamy, you have a lot to do with your house. Why don't you deal with that today and Clarke and I will talk about what to do with Lord Paxton and the rest of the McCrearys." Her smile is tight, but it doesn't feel threatening. This situation is a headache for Lady Abigail, but she's not interested in taking it out on him. "We can get started on your new duties tomorrow."

Technically, they're family now, but he's not going to argue with her yet. Marrying her daughter was enough getting on her bad side for at least a week, if not longer. He can be a good son-in-law for now.

Fuck, he's her _son-in-law_.

Despite his mounting panic, he manages a smile. "Looking forward to it," he tells her, and he thinks it even sounds true.

*

To Bellamy's surprise, most people are happy for him. In some ways, it makes sense; he's always been close to Clarke and did a lot of business on her estate, so whatever resentment anyone had about his good fortune had probably already simmered out. If other young men of the town harbored secret hopes of marrying her themselves, her match with Lord Paxton probably already dashed them, and Bellamy marrying her instead feels like a victory.

So the surprise comes less from people being happy for him and more from the nature of their happiness. Bellamy would have assumed that the gossip around town was that he was hopelessly pining for the lord's daughter, that when people discussed them, it was mostly pity, maybe even a little annoyance that he was following Clarke around instead of marrying someone else.

But instead, it feels as if the town was hoping he _would_ make this work, that they wanted him to stop this marriage. And, even more, they thought he _could_.

The consensus seems to be that all Bellamy ever had to do was ask Clarke to marry him and she'd say yes, and obviously he knew she would. But everyone else--including, from what he can tell, her parents--believes that he told her he loved her, and she felt the same, and this is the culmination of a love story. And part of him can't help thinking he should ask Clarke if that really is what's going on.

If it is, he'd really like to know that.

He gives the house to his friend Miller because Octavia doesn't need it and Miller's been wanting to move out of his parents'. His clothing and personal items he packs, but if he's moving into Clarke's room, he won't need his furniture.

At that thought, he has to stop and take a few deep breaths. He thought there would be more time to get used to this; he didn't think that everything would just go right for him.

When he regains control of his breathing, Miller is in the door, watching him. "So, what happened, exactly?"

"Exactly?"

"I know Monty did the ceremony, he'll tell me the truth if you don't."

Monty definitely would, and Bellamy wouldn't mind complaining. "I told her if she got married to someone else, she could get out of marrying Lord Paxton, and she thought it was a good idea and married me."

"So it was her idea to marry you?"

He shrugs. "Who else was she going to ask?"

"Another lord. She knows them. If she was eloping already, she could have eloped once she got to the McCreary estate. Would have been more scandalous, but if you're looking for someone to tell you that she wanted to marry _you_ , I think she did."

"She told her parents that's what happened, that we were so in love. She said if we just used it as a stall tactic, they'd get it annulled. They needed to think she really meant it."

"And they did."

"They did." He rubs his face. "I should tell her I want to be married to her, huh?"

"I would have told her first, but I wasn't really expecting you to be competent."

"Shut up. I married into the nobility, I could have you killed."

"Tell your wife you love her," Miller advises, "and leave me the fuck alone in my new house."

*

"So, how was your day?"

Bellamy has to smile. He and Clarke are finally alone again, retired to her--their--rooms for the night. He still has to make some more space for his own things in here, but now that he and Clarke are married, apparently they'll be getting their own estate soon.

Being a noble is going to take some getting used to.

"I gave Miller the house, since Octavia didn't want it. What about you? How's your mother taking it?"

"Better than I expected. I should have told her I wanted to marry you before, I didn't think she'd see you as an option."

Bellamy swallows hard. "Would you really have suggested it?"

His tone must give away how much he cares about the answer; Clarke turns, sizing him up, and he doesn't let himself turn away. "To you or to her?"

"Either."

"Probably her first," she admits. "To make sure it would work. And then I would have figured out what to say to you."

Her voice is just careful enough to make him feel sure. "I was going to ask you to marry me, but I thought you might not want to if you didn't, uh--feel the same. Telling you to marry someone seemed safer than admitting I wanted to--"

Apparently, it's enough. Clarke crosses her bedroom, yanking him down, and the kiss is messier than he was really planning on, off-center with a clack of teeth, but the fact that she _is_ kissing him is far and away the most important thing. He slides his arms around her, drawing her close, and the second kiss is better, and the third, and it feels like every one is better until he loses track of how many there have been.

"You could have just asked," she murmurs.

"So could you. You're the one who married below your station, I could have been exiled just for asking."

She laughs, resting her face against his neck as he holds her. "I wouldn't have exiled you."

"No. But if you didn't want to you might have had to say no and marry Lord Paxton."

"It would have been so awkward I had to flee my family's holdings entirely."

"That's why I assumed you would just exile me."

"Or I would have married you."

"You did marry me. For love."

"I did." She leans up to kiss him again. "And you married me for power."

"Obviously. That's why I didn't make it through a full day of marriage before I was confessing my feelings."

Instead of melting, Clarke's expression turns positively wicked. "You know, you could confessed before the wedding night."

For the first time in his life he has absolutely no reason _not_ to take Clarke to bed. In fact, he's _supposed_ to do it. He's her husband.

"I could have. Or we could just try the wedding night again. Now that we're in our own bed."

Now her expression melts. "Our bed," she agrees, and rugs him toward it. "Let's see how it feels."

And, of course, it feels perfect.

*

They have a second ceremony, for appearances' sake, a week later, and all the nobles pretend to their faces that they believe this is the first ceremony and gossip behind their backs about the scandalous elopement.

Which is about what Bellamy expected, and probably what they deserve. As long as everyone's pretending in public, they're in the clear.

The nobles themselves are about as he thought they would be. He's met most of the ones Clarke likes before, and all of them are happy for him, and the rest of them remind him of Abby; a little distant, but polite and willing to hide whatever their true feelings for him are, which is probably better than his having to hear them.

It's not until Clarke says, "Lord Paxton, you made it," that he's actually worried. He's met Lord Paxton exactly once and they didn't get along, and he can't imagine his marrying Clarke so Lord Paxton couldn't will make any part of their relationship better.

Then again, he did marry Clarke and Lord Paxton didn't. So he has that going for him.

"Lady Clarke," he says, smiling, and then turns his attention to Bellamy. "I must have missed whatever title they found for you."

"Smith is fine," he says, returning the smile. "Whatever else I am, I'm still a smith."

"He's a lord of Griffin," Clarke adds. "For his title."

"And he stole my bride out from under me."

The pert reply comes out before he has can think better of it, "I stole her before she was under you. That was kind of the point."

"And before I was your bride." Clarke smiles, turns her voice sickly sweet. "I _am_ sorry, my lord."

Lord Paxton snorts, but he doesn't look particularly offended or heartbroken. "Of course you are. We all feel awful for eloping with our blacksmith lovers a month before the wedding."

"I'm glad you both did that, I thought it was just Clarke," Bellamy says, before he can stop himself, and Lord Paxton seems surprised by his own bark of laughter.

"I guess I walked into that one. But congratulations, really. Best of luck for a happy marriage. It's not easy."

"No," Clarke agrees. "But I think we'll manage."

They are, after all, off to a great start.


End file.
